This article was amended on May 11, 2016.
For those who live, farm or run businesses in Cumbria, east Yorkshire or the West Country, these are frustrating times. For years they have lagged behind urban Britain in access to high-speed broadband and all that flows through it. Their frustration may be about to boil over.
This government and its coalition predecessor have in principle grasped the importance of investing in internet infrastructure. Two years ago David Cameron called broadband the “fourth utility”. Last year Sajid Javid, then secretary of state for culture, media and sport, undertook to extend “superfast” access beyond the 95 per cent of premises who have been promised it by 2017. To this end he announced funding for a series of pilot projects, using novel technologies and business models where conventional ones had not attracted private investment, to bring 21st-century broadband to the furthest reaches of this country.
This admirable ambition is now in danger of being shelved. Ed Vaizey, Mr Javid’s successor, hinted as much last month. A government consultation document released since then argues that reaching the last 5 per cent would not represent value for money. Further, it suggests that people in remote areas would be unlikely to take up the offer of superfast broadband even it was available.
Providing high-speed connections for windblown islands and peninsulas is more expensive on a per capita basis than for blocks of flats and offices. Even so, pulling the plug on superfast for all would be infuriating for those directly affected and a false economy for the rest of us.
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More than a million premises hoping for faster broadband may be denied it. Lives are not threatened, but livelihoods are. Broadband has acquired so many roles so quickly that businesses depend on it to expand. Investors base their decisions on access to it. Schools depend on it to thrive and farmers, the elderly and those on benefits need it as their principal connection to public services that are increasingly provided online.
“The benefits of superfast broadband are clear,” Mr Javid said last year. The pilot projects he championed are yielding progress. Their technologies, using mobile and satellite telephony where landlines are uneconomic, have global potential. It would be a mistake for both the public and private sectors to give up on the “final 5 per cent”. It would be an even graver blunder, however, for the government and regulators to use arguments about the 5 per cent as an excuse to neglect the 95.
The average British broadband connection speed rose last year by 27 per cent to nearly 29 megabits per second (Mbps). This is impressive by past standards but it masks huge variations and a fundamental structural problem. British broadband is a hybrid product of privatisation and piecemeal regulation, overwhelmingly dominated by BT and its Openreach subsidiary.
Yesterday BT (re)announced a £6 billion investment in its network. Its rivals, who depend on it, protest that this is not enough. They have a point. More for its shareholders’ sake than its customers, BT is investing in copper-based technology rather than state-of-the-art fibre optics. Meanwhile, it has spent nearly £2 billion on football broadcast rights and reported a 15 per cent rise in profits for 2015 to more than £3 billion. Ofcom has threatened to break up BT to enable Openreach to concentrate on building a world-class broadband infrastructure. It is time to make good on that threat.
Correction: We suggested that Ed Vaizey had succeeded Sajid Javid as secretary of state for culture, media and sport (leading article, May 7). Mr Javid was succeeded by John Whittingdale. Ed Vaizey is minister of state for culture, communications and creative industries.